Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. A World by the Tale by the Tale by Randall Garrett (find a book to read .txt) 📖
- Author: the Tale by Randall Garrett
Book online «A World by the Tale by the Tale by Randall Garrett (find a book to read .txt) 📖». Author the Tale by Randall Garrett
Jackson, who was standing behind McLeod, grabbed his arm and twisted. "Sign!" His voice was a snarl in McLeod's ear.
Eventually, of course, he signed.
"'Nother beer, Mac?" asked the bartender with a friendly smile.
"Yeah, Leo; thanks." McLeod pushed his quarter across the bar with one hand and scratched negligently at his beard with the fingers of the other. Nobody questioned him in this neighborhood. The beard, which had taken two months to grow, disguised his face, and he had given his name as McCaffery, allowing his landlord and others who heard it to make the natural assumption that he was of Irish descent.
He was waiting. He had been forced to move from his apartment; nobody wanted that dirty so-and-so, Professor McLeod, around. Besides, his money was running short. He had never seen the two thousand. "You'll get that when the Galactic bank cashes your royalty check," he had been told. He was waiting.
Not hiding. No. That wasn't possible. The U.B.I. could find him easily when they wanted him. There was no place he could have hidden from them for very long. A man needs friends to stay hidden from an efficient police organization for very long, and John Hamish McLeod had no friends. "Jack McCaffery" had, since he was a pleasant kind of fellow who made friends easily when he wanted them. But he had no illusions about his new friends. Let them once suspect, however faintly, that Good Old Jack McCaffery was really that Professor McLeod, and the game would be up.
The U.B.I. would find him again all right, whenever it wanted him. And McLeod hoped it would be soon because he was down to his last hundred bucks.
So he waited and thought about fifty thousand Galactic credits.
The mathematics was simple, but it conveyed an awful lot of information. To make fifty thousand credits from one thousandth of one percent royalties on a book selling at five credits the copy, one must needs sell a billion copies. Nothing to it.
5X·10-5 = 5·104
Ergo: X = 109
McLeod drew the equations on the bar with the tip of a wet forefinger, then rubbed them out quickly.
A billion copies in the first year. He should have seen it. He should have understood.
How many planets were there in the galaxy?
How many people on each planet?
Communication, even at ultralight velocities, would be necessarily slow. The galaxy was just too big to be compassed by the human mind—or even by the mind of a Galactic, McLeod suspected.
How do you publish a book for Galactic, for galaxy-wide, consumption? How long does it take to saturate the market on each planet? How long does it take to spread the book from planet to planet? How many people were there on each planet who would buy a good book? Or, at least, an entertaining one.
McLeod didn't know, but he suspected that the number was huge. McLeod was a zoologist, not an astronomer, but he read enough on astronomy to know that the estimated number of Earth-type planets alone—according to the latest theory—ran into the tens of millions or hundreds of millions. The—
A man sat down on the stool next to McLeod and said something loud enough and foul enough to break the zoologist's train of thought.
"Gimme a shot, Leo," he added in an angry voice.
"Sure, Pete," the bartender said. "What's the trouble?"
"Tourists," Pete said with a snarl. "Laffin' attus alla time like we was monkeys inna zoo! Bunch 'em come inta day." He downed his whiskey with a practiced flip of the wrist and slammed it on the bar. Leo refilled it immediately. "I shunt gripe, I guess. Gotta haffa credit offen 'em." He slapped down a five dollar bill as though it had somehow been contaminated.
The bar became oddly quiet. Everyone had heard Pete. Further, everyone had heard that another shipload of Galactics had landed and were, at the moment, enjoying the sights of New York. A few of them knew that Pete was the bell-captain in one of the big midtown hotels.
McLeod listened while Pete expounded on the shame he had had to undergo to earn half a credit—a lousy five bucks.
McLeod did some estimating. Tourists—the word had acquired an even more pejorative sense than it had before, and now applied only to Galactics—bought nothing, but they tipped for services, unless the services weren't wanted or needed. Pete had given them information that they hadn't had before—where to find a particular place. All in all, the group of fifteen Galactics had given out five or six credits in such tips. Say half a credit apiece. There were, perhaps, a hundred Galactics in this shipload. That meant fifty credits. Hm-m-m.
They didn't need anyone to carry their bags; they didn't need anyone to register them in hotels; they didn't need personal service of that kind. All they wanted to do was look. But they wouldn't pay for looking. They had no interest in Broadway plays or the acts in the night-clubs—at least, not enough to induce them to pay to see them. This particular group had wanted to see a hotel. They had wandered through it, looking at everything and laughing fit to kill at the carpets on the floor and the electric lighting and such. But when the management had hinted that payment for such services as letting them look should be forthcoming, they had handed half a credit to someone and walked out. Then they had gone to the corner of Fifty-first and Madison and looked for nothing.
Fifty credits for a shipload. Three shiploads a year. Hell, give 'em the benefit of the doubt and say ten shiploads a year. In a hundred years, they'd add another fifty thousand to Earth's resources.
McLeod grinned.
And waited.
They came for him, eventually, as McLeod had known they would.
But they came long before he had expected. He had given them six months at the least. They came for him at the end of the third month.
It was Jackson, of course. It would have to be Jackson. He walked into the cheap little room McLeod had rented, followed by his squad of men.
He tossed a peculiar envelope on the bed next to McLeod.
"Letter came for you, humorist. Open it."
McLeod sat on the edge of the bed and read the letter. The envelope had already been opened, which surprised him none.
It looked very much like an ordinary business letter—except that whatever they used for paper was whiter and tougher than the paper he used.
He was reminded of the time he had seen a reproduction of a Thirteenth Century manuscript alongside the original. The copy had been set up in a specially-designed type and printed on fine paper. The original had been handwritten on vellum.
McLeod had the feeling that if he used a microscope on this letter the lines and edges would be just as precise and clear as they appeared to the naked eye, instead of the fuzziness that ordinary print would show.
The way you tell a synthetic ruby from a natural ruby is to look for flaws. The synthetic doesn't have any.
This letter was a Galactic imitation of a Terran business letter.
It said:
Dear Mac,
I am happy to report that your book, "Interstellar Ark," is a smash hit. It looks as though it is on its way to becoming a best seller. As you already know by your royalty statement, over a billion copies were sold the first year. That indicates even better sales over the years to come as the reputation of the book spreads. Naturally, our advertising campaign will remain behind it all the way. Congratulations.
Speaking of royalty checks, there seems to be some sort of irregularity about yours. I am sorry, but according to regulations the check must be validated in the presence of your Galactic Resident before it can be cashed. Your signature across the back of it doesn't mean anything to our bankers.
Just go to your Galactic Resident, and he'll be happy to take care of the matter for you. That's what he's there for. The next check should come through very shortly.
All the best,
Clem.
Better and better, McLeod thought. He hadn't expected to be able to do anything until his next royalty check arrived. But now—
He looked up at Jackson. "All right. What's next?"
"Come with us. We're flying to Hawaii. Get your hat and coat."
McLeod obeyed silently. At the moment, there was nothing else he could do. As a matter of fact, there was nothing he wanted to do more.
It was no trouble at all for Professor McLeod to get an audience with the Galactic Resident, but when he was escorted in by Jackson and his squad, the whole group was halted inside the front door.
The Resident, a tall, lean being with a leathery, gray face that somehow managed to look crocodilian in spite of the fact that his head was definitely humanoid in shape, peered at them from beneath pronounced supraorbital ridges. "Is this man under arrest?" he asked in a gravelly baritone.
"Er ... no," said Jackson. "No. He is merely in protective custody."
"He has not been convicted of any crime?"
"No sir," Jackson said. His voice sounded as though he were unsure of himself.
"That is well," said the Resident. "A convicted criminal cannot, of course, use the credits of society until he has become rehabilitated." He paused. "But why protective custody?"
"There are those," said Jackson, choosing his words with care, "who feel that Professor McLeod has brought disgrace upon the human race ... er ... the Terrestrial race. There is reason to believe that his life may be in danger."
McLeod smiled wryly. What Jackson said was true, but it was carefully calculated to mislead.
"I see," said the Resident. "It would appear to me that it would be simpler to inform the people that he has done no such thing; that, indeed, his work has conferred immense benefits upon your race. But that is your own affair. At any rate, he is in no danger here."
He didn't need to say anything else. Jackson knew the hint was an order and that he wouldn't get any farther with his squad.
McLeod spoke up. "Subject to your permission, sir, I would like to have Mr. Jackson with me."
The Galactic Resident smiled. "Of course, professor. Come in, both of you." He turned and led the way through the inner door.
Nobody bothered to search either of them, not even though they must know that Jackson was carrying a gun. McLeod was fairly certain that the gun would be useless to Jackson if he tried to assert his authority with it. If Clem had been able to render the U.B.I.'s eavesdropping apparatus inoperable, it was highly probable that the Galactic Resident would have some means of taking care of weapons.
"There are only a few formalities to go through," the Resident said pleasantly, indicating chairs with a gesture. The room he had led them to didn't look much different from that which would be expected in any tastefully furnished apartment in New York or Honolulu.
McLeod and Jackson sat down in a couple of comfortable easy-chairs while the Resident went around a large desk and sat down in a swivel chair behind it. He smiled a little and looked at McLeod. "Hm-m-m. Ah, yes. Very good." It was as though he had received information of some kind on an unknown subject through an unknown channel, McLeod thought. Evidently that was true, for his next words were: "You are not under the influence of drugs nor hypnotic compulsion, I see. Excellent, professor. Is it your desire that this check be converted to cash?" He made a small gesture. "You have only to express it, you see. It would be difficult to explain it to you, but rest assured that such an expression of will—while you are sitting in that chair—is impressed upon the structure of the check itself and is the equivalent of a signature. Except, of course, that it is unforgeable."
"May I ask a few questions first?" McLeod said.
"Certainly, professor. I am here to answer your questions."
"This money—is it free and clear, or are there Galactic taxes to pay?"
If the Galactic Resident had had eyebrows, it is likely that they would have lifted in surprise. "My dear professor! Aside from the fact that we run our ... er ... government in an entirely different manner, we would consider it quite immoral to take what a man earns without giving services of an exact kind. I will charge you five credits for this validation, since I am rendering a service. The bank will take a full tenth of
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